Feature Channels: Surgery

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Roughly one out of every 24 patients undergoing surgery acquires a surgical site infection. With 40 million operations performed in the U.S. each year, between 800,000 and 2 million individuals contract these infections annually. An innovative new pilot project being launched by Sherry Lansing, a regent of the University of California, and her husband, Academy Award–winning film director William Friedkin, provides hope for the future in helping hospitals address such infections.

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Loyola University Medical Center is believed to be the first organization in the country, and perhaps the world, in which five employees have each donated kidneys to complete strangers with no strings attached.

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Postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD) refers to a "mild but possibly long-lasting cognitive fogginess" occurring after surgery and anesthesia. The May issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, official journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS), presents a special-focus section on POCD in older adults—including the possible causes and preoperative evaluation of POCD risk.

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A recent study has demonstrated that doctors may soon have a tool for identifying orthopedic prostheses that are becoming loose after total joint replacement surgery, the most common reason joint replacements fail.

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Patients who received kidney transplants through the UCLA Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Program had the highest three-year transplant survival rate among patients who underwent the procedure at U.S. centers that perform 80 or more transplants a year.

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When doctors own or lease MRI equipment, their patients are more likely to receive scans for low back pain.

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Patients on peritoneal dialysis (PD) typically have a higher early survival rate than patients on hemodialysis (HD). New data suggest that this difference may be explained by a higher risk of early deaths among patients undergoing HD with central venous catheters, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN).

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Six-and-a-half weeks after receiving the first hand transplant in the western United States, Emily Fennell is becoming so accustomed to her new right hand that she barely remembers when she didn't have one.

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The recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of a brain aneurysm device has opened the door for neurosurgeons at Jefferson Hospital for Neuroscience (JHN) to offer advanced treatment to patients suffering from large or giant aneurysms who otherwise have limited, effective options.

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Most patients with scoliosis (curved spine) developing after age ten don't need routine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanning before spine-straightening surgery, suggests a study in the April 14 issue of Spine. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

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Neurosurgeons at the Krembil Neuroscience Centre, Toronto Western Hospital, have for the first time, initiated the restoration of lost brain tissue through brain bypass surgery in patients where blood flow to the brain is impaired by cerebrovascular disease. The study, which involved 29 patients, was published online in the journal Stroke.

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A study has found that binge drinking could change the body's immune system response to orthopaedic injury. This could complicate the care of binge-drinking trauma patients.

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A device developed by UT Southwestern Medical Center surgeons offers precise repair of pelvic fractures with minimal postsurgical scarring, pain and infection risk and is available for broad adoption by the nation’s 200 level I trauma centers.

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A new high-flow brain bypass procedure developed by a Saint Louis University surgeon is highlighted on the cover of Neurosurgery.

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Taking a statin before having major elective surgery reduces potentially serious kidney complications, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN).

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Kidney transplant recipients who develop antibodies in response to receiving new organs can develop accelerated arteriosclerosis, or narrowing of the arteries that supply blood to the kidney, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN). The results indicate that arteriosclerosis resulting from such donor-specific antibodies may play an important role in organ rejection following transplantation.

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For the first time, scientists at Toronto General Hospital, University Health Network have shown in a clinical trial that the Toronto XVIVO System can safely and effectively treat, re-assess and improve the function of high-risk donor lungs so that they can be successfully transplanted into patients. The use of this technique could significantly expand the donor organ pool and improve outcomes after transplantation.

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Tragically, infants experience severe or fatal head trauma as a result of intentional abuse. Shaken baby syndrome, now commonly referred to as non-accidental head trauma, is a serious form of abuse inflicted upon a child. While there have been other studies analyzing the relationship between economic hardship and child abuse, including head trauma, this research focuses specifically on severe head trauma trends in infants.

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Of the 4,030 new cases of brain tumors diagnosed in 2010, an estimated 2,880 were in children younger than 15. As many as 15 percent of these pediatric brain tumors occur in the brainstem. Eighty percent of brainstem gliomas (BSG’s) are diffuse intrinsic pontine gliomas (DIPGs), an almost always fatal tumor with no effective treatment. Researchers studied the biology of pediatric brainstem glioma in an effort to advance treatment of this leading cause of brain tumor death in children.

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EANS-4th WORLD ICH Congress 2011 to convene key specialists on May 2-5 in NewcastleGateshead.